Fayette joining other counties in lawsuit against Gov. Tom Wolf
Fayette County will join a multicounty lawsuit against Gov. Tom Wolf over southwestern counties in Pennsylvania that have not be allowed to partially reopen.
During a special meeting on Thursday, the commissioners voted 2-1 to join the suit being brought by other area counties, local legislators and other private parties. The suit will challenge the actions of Wolf and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine over the business shutdown order.
Commissioners Dave Lohr and Scott Dunn voted in favor of joining the suit, while Commissioner Vincent Vicites voted against it.
The lawsuit is seeking, in part, that the shutdown be deemed unconstitutional and a permanent injunction be put in place to prohibit the state from enforcing it.
Last week, Wolf announced that 24 counties in the state will be partially reopened, including businesses. Fayette, Greene and Washington counties, which have relatively low case counts, were not among them.
Lohr said the lawsuit was necessary because openness and communication from the state government has been nonexistent. He said the majority of those who have died from the virus have had preexisting conditions, or have been residents of long-term care facilities.
He added that according to the Hospital and Health System Association of Pennsylvania, of the 37,000 hospital beds in the state, 2,572 of them were for COVID-19 patients, which is 6.9%.
Lohr also told a story about a friend of his who died of a heart attack in the hospital, and the family wasn’t permitted to visit because of restrictions.
“These different situations like this really hit the heart,” Lohr said.
He said businesses are suffering, citing figures from the Fayette County Chamber of Commerce, which surveyed 20 local small businesses about their revenue losses over the past seven weeks.
Those 20 businesses averaged a $133,125 loss, which totaled $2.62 million.
Lohr said there are approximately 2,574 registered businesses in the county since 2017.
“When you look at those figures, businesses are suffering drastically,” Lorh said. “I support this because no one person should ever be able – under our constitution – to be able to dictate to this many people on what they can do with their lives.”
Vicites said he was opposed to Fayette being part of the lawsuit because he believed it wasn’t the correct approach to the issue.
Vicites said that he, too, was disappointed that Fayette wasn’t moved to yellow last week, but said the lawsuit isn’t the way to go as the county should have a positive relationship with the state moving forward.
Vicites said a lawsuit isn’t his way of approaching government, adding that a recent lawsuit to lift the stay-at-home order was recently denied by the U.S. Supreme Court.
He also said 23 out of the 31 commissioners, both Democrat and Republican, from those southwestern counties that have been sending letters to the governor are also opposed to the lawsuit because the state was compiling data Thursday and planned to reopen additional counties.
“I feel confident that we will be approved (Friday) to go to the yellow phase along with other counties in the southwest,” Vicites said. “I believe he (Wolf) is going to do that. I don’t have a doubt in my mind.”
Dunn said he agrees that Fayette County’s COVID-19 case numbers have been improving, but said that was the same case a week ago when other counties were chosen to reopen.
“I’m sitting here as a county commissioner hoping we go to yellow (Friday), but there’s no guarantee of that,” Dunn said. He said he feels like Wolf and Levine are moving counties’ statuses at their whim.
“That cannot be allowed,” he said.
Dunn said he’s been constantly receiving phone calls, text messages, emails and in-person visits from concerned residents over opening the county back up as writing letters to the governor’s office has shown no results.
“The time for letters is over,” Dunn said. “It’s time for action, and I’ll do whatever is needed to open the Fayette County economy up to and including suing the governor of the state of Pennsylvania.”
Dunn added that joining the lawsuit will come at no cost to taxpayers.